ten minute tuesdays

the run up to Christmas… ahhh.

Once again this week has been a little devoid of anything crafty creative, but I did spend the weekend either clothes shopping (seems little miss has outgrown last years winter wardrobe! I never gave her permission to do that!), practising yoga or cooking.  Actually quite a nice weekend. Especially when I made those beauties in the picture above.  Dulce De Leche Buscuits from a recipe by Gordan Ramsey.  Now they are a ten minute wonder. Seriously – TEN MINUTES. Ok, maybe 12 minutes. They do not take that long to eat though!

Monday was more shopping and a mountain of orders to process. But I’m up to date now. Yay!

 

I’m also busy planning next year. I don’t mean January, but way beyond that. Way way beyond. I’ve decided I wanted to try something new so I’ve signed up to take part in Ali Edward’s One Little Word. It starts on the first of January and all I need to do is come up with a word between now and then. I’m pleased to say I can already tick that task off my list. I’ve even talked my choice through with hubby to explain why I’ve chosen it. I think I even shocked myself with my justification. Main thing is, right now it sits with me.  I’m sorry to say I’m not revealing it just yet on my blog. I don’t know yet how this all works, but I will share some of my efforts with you as I go through 2014.  If you are interested and, like me, haven’t done it before you can find more info over on Ali’s blog. She has a $5 discount if you sign up before the end of the month.

I have a couple of other online classes I have my eye on as well for next year once I have carved some time out for them. Proper inky painty creative type classes. I doubt that that will be this side of Easter though. eek..

Well, this is a scheduled post, so I should off enjoying the delights of York in the run up to Christmas. I’ll have my sharpest elbows on though, don’t you worry!

ten minute tuesday…

hello and welcome to you.

How’s the Christmas preparations going then?  Mine…erm, well the kids have presents and if they can get their rooms tidy between now and then, they may even get them. Couple of family presents have been tucked away but I have yet to start on hubby’s presents. What am I doing instead…. having a crafty clear out! Yay. 

This is the first fat cropper hopper that hit the recycling bin.  I had three like this in the end, and another one stuffed full of papers to move to new homes.  Some of which have already been re-homed. It’s not that I want to get rid of any of them, but I have to be honest about how much scrapping I’ve done the last couple of years, and how much space it all takes up that I want back.  Well, a girl needs to store her project life goodies somewhere…

In amongst all the clearing out I’ve found stuff I had forgotten I’d got. Inevitable really. I’ve chopped some up to make some project life style cards. I’ve been sat in front of the TV with my trimmer and corner punch.

Yesterday I spent some time clearing out my mountain of embellishment boxes, swapped some trays around and made myself a box full of goodies ready to grab when working on my albums.

The tray isn’t full yet, and there is a second one underneath so fill up with more “stuff” but I love my sequin corner. I’ve gathered up all the tubes I have.

 

I have also taken over half the dining room table as I have been working on my project life albums.  I’m mainly working on August at the moment.

One of our trips was to Buckingham Palace, where you are not allowed to take photo’s inside, but I did, after some searching, find a pack of postcards in the gift shop.  Now chopped up and inserted into the pockets of my pages.

 

A quick pop to Edinburgh of the day where Instagram featured quite a bit so I’ve used those photo’s for this page.

 

Next to work on is our trip to Crete. This is as far as I have got as I don’t have any photo’s printed off as yet.  But, I sat at the table with the kids while they were having dinner and made my small title card for the page. A perfect 10 minutes of creativity.   I keep popping back to the pages. I’m even working on last week.  Photo’s courtesy of the Polaroid camera my lovely hubby got me for my birthday. Best part is you can print from an SD card (not tried it yet, but I have high hopes!)

So, wow, looks like a productive flash back of ten minute pops.  Shame I have the best part of a year to catch up on! LOL.

ten minute tuesdays……

is all out of creativity. again.

Last week was just hectic with work. The weekend was spent, mainly, in the car. Firstly a drive to Newcastle to see the utterly awesome Stereophonics, and back again. Then to following morning a drive to the other side of the country to pick up the kids form the Grandparents, where they stayed so we could go and see the utterly awesome Stereophonics.

Have I mentioned they were UTTERLY AWESOME!

Monday was new stock sorting day with the arrival of Daily Grind, then my youngest was sent home sick from school. Ping back to pick up the eldest.  Today, she’s still quite unwell, bless her, and needs lots of Mummy cuddles, interrupted by a dozen boxes stuffed full of scrapbook albums arriving. So, I just haven’t managed to get my creativity on again this week.   Next week is my birthday so we will see what happens, maybe I’ll get to visit someone else's creativity for a day.

 

ten minute tuesday…

well, here we are again, half term. It makes me feel a little crazy but it only seems two minutes since the kids went back to school after the summer break. I seriously hope that we don’t fast forward quite as quickly to Christmas. 

Yesterday I snatched ten minutes in my art journal.  I had some Montana Acrylic Markers sitting on my desk so did some journal spilling and had a quick doodle over the top.  Also on my desk was a roll of Glitz washi tape so I added some of that. Why not eh?! The colours cheered me up as I’m currently drowning in paperwork. I’ve also been doing some secret squirrel work again so I wanted to create a quick page that was nothing like what I’ve been working on.

I even started a second page, but at the moment it looks like someone has puked yellow paint all over it so it may need more working on before it’s shared. If at all.

That’s it from me today.  Fingers crossed I may get something else done but for now I need to persuade, in my best Mum tone, that it’s about time PJ’s weren’t ruling the day.  Tin hat on… I’m going in!

ten minute tuesday…

it's still a little crazy around here. Mostly I've been doing secret squirrel stuff and getting creatively frustrated with myself. Given myself a few stern tellings off, or bollockings as I like to call them. Creativity and I are not getting along so well at the moment. Hopefully we’ll be friends again soon.

When I get like that, and I know I'm doing it, I just have to take a step back, or two, maybe even three and do something else. As a completely disorganised person my best cure is organising myself so while I was at it I wanted to share this little treasure with you. 


My project life notebook.

OK, I know that like a lot of you I can be known to erm, collect notebooks, BUT Noooo - I don't do the whole multicoloured by a fancy filofax thing, or have folders with PL layouts sketched out. That is just overkill – to me.  Might be your thing but I just want to keep daily notes.   Quick simple note or quotes from the day. Some days I have nothing to say at all! Imagine that…
 
Its B6 sized (125mm x 175mm) so perfect for shoving in your bag if you travel. It has 17 weeks of, well, weeks in it so no big bulky diary to carry with you. Perfect travelling companion if you ask me. Another of the things I love about it is it’s dateless. As you can see I only really decided that if I was ever going to complete ANY project life pages I needed to keep notes, so this one was started in August.  You can also get a little cover to slot it in to if you so wish and you could use one side to collect all your bits and bots.
 
 
I am so impressed with it that I have just ordered a larger diary from the same range for work. And I’d like a huge pile of the note pads too if I’m honest.

If you like the look of it, it’s by Katy & June and I got mine here from Bureau Direct. I so so LURVE that store.  Great clear website, and waaay too much stationery goodness to be tempted into buying.  Sign up to their email and you get 10% off the first week of the month. If you love stationery as I do, getting the emails is not a chore.

Right, that’s it for me. I’ve had more deliveries today that I haven’t even opened yet. No rest for the wicked eh – or me!

ten minute tuesday..

life is quite hectic at the moment. My beloved hubby had emergency surgery at the start of last week and things have been upside down ever since. I’ve needed to temporarily close the store so that I can be his home nurse and look after him since being discharged. The house doesn’t look like a bomb has gone off, it looks more like a bombing raid has been through. We’re all exhausted, but getting through it and he’s slowly on the mend.

When we went to the hospital I had to quickly grab a bag and stuff things in it to amuse the kids. My little lady, who is an avid drawer, didn’t know where her sketch book was, so I quickly grabbed a small one for her. She didn’t use it and it ended up being my note book for a massive list of things I needed to do for hubby before he went for his surgery. I should have known what the rest of the week would be like from that point…

Anyway, at the weekend, I sat down with it and started to doodle, and I now have a bunch of pages started. I’m thinking I’ll keep it as a doodle journal. I found it really relaxing. Everyone was in bed fast asleep and I just sat in the peace and quite with a black pen and my book. 

a bird in amongst some grasses

a few leaves with some ‘flowers which I’ve now started to colour in.

 

I’ve split one page in to 7 parts to do a doodle a day. This is Saturday’s doodle (you might guess…)

and finally I created a “frames” page. Each frame to be filled with a little something. So far, girls, grasses and mushrooms mainly.  Oh and while I was sitting wondering what to do in one of the frames I thought I’d have a go at drawing a feather. I’m quite pleased with it. I don’t think I’ve drawn one before.  That page may become a feather page as I try different ways to draw them.

That’s my short and sweet creative burst for this week. If nothing else I may sit down each evening and if my eyes stay open long enough add to my doodles.

Thanks for stopping by, and please do share your ten minute creative bursts with me.

Vicki

ten minute tuesday…

hello and welcome.
Today’s post is a nice one for me. You may remember one of my previous ten minute posts where I created some simple project life cards I was making. Well that led to me being asked to create some for Scrap365 who had an upcoming edition which was a project life special. That edition, the Oct/Nov 2013 issue, is now out, on sale, in the real world. And my cards are in it!

(we’ve also got a giveaway in this issue for two of the new Glitz collections)

Back to Project Life cards. I thoroughly loved making these cards. Nice and clean, which if you ever saw my desk you would NOT think that they had come from me!

I made a couple of extra cards that I didn’t send off and they are now in my PL album.

I found it really therapeutic hunting through my stamps to make these. A great relaxing way to spend ten minutes escaping the chaos. Now I must go face the chaos.

ten minute tuesday...

hello, I'm back for ten minute tuesdays...finally. It's been a hectic summer but now the kids are back in school things are slowly starting to return to normal. I'm enjoying peaceful days but oh boy - where'd the sun go?!

Anyhoo - creative talk now. Project Life more specifically.

Just before we took our summer holiday I ordered 154 photo's from Photobox. Lots of them were Instagram shots which I ordered on 4"x6", making them 4"x4". Honestly though - what a pain going through and clicking "shrink to fit" on every single one.  For some reason that was the only way I could get it to do it. Ugh.

So, here I am with 154 photo's, destined for my Project Life album. Ha - lots of gaps to fill in too as this is from March to July. Eeek. so where did I start....by buying a new printer! LOL.

I've quickly come to the conclusion that if I'm going to record our lives again, I need a printer.
We used to have a fabulous printer, but it died a death and we replaced it with an amazing printer - but it's an office one, and in all honesty, printing photo's on it really isn't the best. They are ok, but not what I want.

Enter a Canaon Selphy C900.

Wireless. Yeah right. Not in our house.

We work for ourselves, and have a lot of security set up on our network and clearly this little baby doesn't like hanging around for you to type in very long passwords...  Oh the joys. So, I've just plugged it in to my laptop. I'm not upset about it.

So far I love it! But. Warnings.....  

I usually print onto matte paper. The selphy packs are gloss and they are waterproof prints.Great if you have a coffee spill, not so great for my pens. My regular pens don't adhere to them, even my micron pens. Arrgh! I have several sharpies, one has worked. A regular old sharpie with an extra fine tip at one end.  If you don't write on photo's then it won't be an issue for you.

Second issue was Instagram photos. Although the Selphy comes with print size options, and a custom option. It didn't really do for Instagram. I want to be able to print them at various sizes, from 4" to 2".

Back to the drawing board then. Noooooooooo.....

I have had a couple of apps suggested to me to get over this. While they may work for other people I don't want to fiddling about on a tiny phone screen with an app. My eye sight isn't what it used to be you know... LOL. And, more importantly I just don't have the patience. But I do have PSE7. yay. Problem solved!

I do find PSE a bit of a faff most of the time, but this was quick and painless.  I back up all my Instagram and camera shots on our network as a matter of course, so they are all there ready for me to print.

HOW TO.....

• open your instagram image in PSE and select "image" "resize" . I then select the size in inches. As you can see from above image 4", 3.75", 3" and 2" sizes. 
• Do this for all the images you want to print - especially important for the smaller sizes so you have them all selected at once to fit on the sheet. 
• Select "File" "Print multiple images", with PSE7 a new window opens. 
• For multiple images on one sheet make sure you select "contact sheet" print type (dropdown 2)
• Set the number of columns - two should be enough for images 3" and smaller.

There we have it - all ready to print out my Instagram images ready to use.
Project Life album under way.
 I'm not putting myself under pressure to catch up with everything for it. I'll start with the big events and days out and gradually fill in inbetween, but from this week I can start recording things weekly (ish).

Where does the ten minutes come in? errm, well now I have the printing issue out of the way, I can spend ten minutes writing up the cards for the album in my "war on the photo mound".

Please do share with me what you have been up to in your bid to catch up and/or get creative ten minutes at a time.

Thanks for stopping by!
Vicki 

ten minute tuesday with a WOYWW twist..

hello, welcome. Sorry about being missing recently.

Where to start… “ahhhh” seems like a good place right now.

Having the kids at home is having a bigger knock on effect this year than last.

Last year, they played quietly. This year they have to be constantly reminded of what indoor voices sound like.

Last year they got on. This year they argue, scream and shout at each other over the smallest things.

Last year I could work happily with them in the background. This year it’s proving to be very stressful.

How many weeks until the schools are open again? We really should have summer camps like they do in the States. I know I’m a slight workaholic. You have to be when you work for yourself. I know I add self induced pressure to the mix. I know I am overdue a nice long break. Right now a Pimms will do!  Oh well, The Better Half finishes up on Friday for the rest of the summer and the full on family fun starts in earnest. Warnings have gone on the shop, just need to add holiday dates as well. (you can still order, but I won’t be popping back to pack them).

Right – creatively I’m been working on secret squirrel projects. Stuff I’d love to share, but can’t.

This is my desk pad. It’s been used for a wee bit of brainstorming. The rest of my desk is full of ink pads and stamps, invoices, pre-orders and stock lists.  I’m not sharing that as it looks like a fax machine has puked up on it. I kid you not, paper mountain, avalanche danger to all who enter. I have three weeks left before we head off on our jollies and I’m wondering how I’ll get it all done. I will though, because I have to. The Better Half will be here to ease the pain and allow me to get on with what needs to be got on with.

Just going to leave you with this picture, taken on my phone before the clouds wondered on. I love the crisp white edge to the clouds… a silver lining perhaps. A good omen.

ten minute tuesdays…

hello, and a very late welcome.

Isn’t it sooo good to have the sun out, for more than an hour. Not that I’m much of a sun worshipper….

that’s me… legs out, hiding in the shade of the tree’s on the school playing field waiting for my youngest to be released to me.

It’s a prep week this week. My little boy is growing up and I have a birthday cake to create! He doesn’t know it yet, but so far I’ve purchased a bigger tin to bake it in and this little lot..

All the colours of the rainbow! This time next week I’m sure I’ll be in baking hell.  Next on the list is a cake tin and base big enough to store it.

I’m also working on this weekends flash sale as part of our store’s birthday celebrations. 2 years old. Amazing. If you’re a scrapper, you’re gonna love the next one, but you’ll have to wait until Friday to find out what it is!

It’s the last week of term here next week so there won’t be a ten minute tuesday post from me. With birthdays, end of term Church services, parties, school disco’s and whatnot I won’t have time to do anything other than curse while decorating this cake.  I’ll try and remember to take photo’s if the cake works out and share that with you next time.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Vicki

ten minute tuesday

hello there! 

Summer seems to be coming in fast and the school holidays are a mere three weeks away for us. 

I dread them. 

Not because I don't love my kids, or spending time with them, but. Yeah, but.  I get nothing done while they are home so much. Working for myself becomes very hard and as for time to create, well, yeah, you can almost kiss that one away. 

On the plus side I'm lucky enough to have dearest darling hubby at home with me for the bulk of the school holidays. As a result, this year we have planned oooooodles of days out to keep the kids amused and get them nicely knackered.

 Its a plan.

 That means most of my ten minutes have been spent dreaming up and booking up some great days out. 

It had better work! I couldn't cope with a summer full of grizzles. 

I did manage some more traditional creative time this week, with my art journal. 

Confession....

• I spent about twenty minutes drawing on this... in one go. 
• I've been backwards and forward to laying down the colour for at least an hour at a time. 

So , not strictly ten minutes. More a gathering of ten minute sessions.

You can probably tell I used a page that had gesso on it. Why? It was the next page in my journal and I didn't give it a second thought. I've done the drawings using Pigma Micron pens (here in the shop) and Derwent watercolour pencil (I don't sell them as I you can get them cheaper elsewhere than I can get them!)

I've had a new set of Derwent Coloursoft pencils arrive today so I'm off for a play with them now.

Happy Creating and don't forget to link up if you've joined me this week. Links run until midnight next Monday. 

ten minute tuesday...

Blimey, tuesday again. Already! 

I swear I never agreed to that. 

Sort and sweet this week as not a lot has really gone on here since last week. 

I've been having a short play in my art doodle love book, and completely ignoring the prompts! 

At the moment I want to develop my 'flowers' or should that be my abstract flowers, and art doodle love was close at hand. Calling to me. Maybe it's been feeling a bit abandoned. (yes I know I'm talking about it like its a living creature, but that's ok). 

I'm at the point of sketching them out with a pigma micron pen (love these babies) and my intention this week to take evenings off work and colour them in.  I might go over the outlines with a pen other than black first. Not sure yet. See what happens when I sit down to do it. 

  I had already started to doodle on this page, but it was pant so I doodled over it. As you do!

Well I've shown you mine, you gonna show me yours? 

Being brave and testing/adding out a linky....
Its an experiment as I've never used one before and there are plans afoot!
 I thoroughly expect to be a billy no mates on this, but consider the bullet bitten and a red face later. Hey ho! 

ten minute tuesday....

hello, hello and welcome once again to ten minute tuesday, and a very sunny tuesday it is too! 

Hurrah! 

Do we dare that summer may finally have arrived.  I'm refusing to check the weather forecast for the rest of the week, especially as we had hail followed by glorious sunshine at the weekend. I don't know if I should get my tingers out or not. 

tingers.... toes that think they are fingers. That's what hang off the end of my feet.  I've kept them hidden away from public view for years, but I care not anymore.  Better to display the tingers than have hot feet.  Must be an age thing. Like everything else. 

Right, this week has been super quick and easy. Project Life prep. I still have to order my photos, but I am starting to create some simple 'month' cards. I've used the Studio Calico Clear Months set for this.

Now, I like happy accidents, but these are grid cards, and if I had to get the months lined up. I used some of the Glitz Design washi tape to line up the card with some scrap lined paper. The washi was then just folded over the top as part of the overall design of the card when I'd finished stamping.

I even lined up my stamps on one of the Tim Holtz grid blocks.  Peeling off the month I wanted to highlight, I stamped them in black archival ink (it was close to hand and I have the large pad)

and the missing month was stamped using Adirondack Dye Ink Pad in Citrus

a couple of extra little stamped flourishes and I'm done.  Quick, simple, clean month cards.

Right I'm off to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, or just make the most of the fact the kids are playing out! Yay, peace and quiet...for a while.

Thanks for stopping by and do please let me know if you join me for short creative bursts. 

ten minute tuesdays

hello and welcome to ten minute tuesdays.  Nice to see you again! 

ten minute tuesdays seem to be the only posts I'm managing at the moment, but for now all decorating has stopped. At least I hope so. Problem is once you start it makes you realise how family worn your house is looking. 

This week my 6 year old daughter asked if she could do a page in my art journal with some of my 'special pencils'.  How could I resist? Well, clearly I couldn't.   I let her draw her picture then showed her how to use my 'special pencils' (inktense) and off she went.  

this page started as an owl holding a heart shaped balloon.

when I came back it was raining and someone was trying to stop the owl from blowing away! 

Too cute! 

then she wanted to so another page.... full of hearts...

I love that these pages now pop up in my art journal. I'm sure there will be more at some point... 

Thanks for joining me today.  Do share what you've been up to!